Visitor’s visa and residence permit

A visitor's visa allows you to stay in Norway or other Schengen countries for up to 90 days over a period of 180 days. A residence permit gives you the opportunity to work in Norway and to stay for more than 90 days.

Citizens of Ethiopia (holding an Ethiopian passport) need to apply for a visitor's visa to enter Norway. If you plan to stay longer than 90 days, you also need to apply for a residence permit to enter Norway. 

All applications are to be submitted to our global partner - VFS Global. They are our contact point for receiving applications for visa and residence permits, answering phone calls and e-mails on behalf of Norwegian Embassies. Make an appointment with your local VFS office when you wish to apply.

General enquiries about applications

If you have applied for a residence permit and your application has been forwarded to the Norwegian Directorate of Immigration (UDI), kindly contact UDI if you have questions about the status of your case.

If you have any visa or immigration related questions, you can contact VFS Global via email or telephone: 

VFS Global in Addis Ababa
Email: info.nret@vfshelpline.com
Telephone: +251 960 437 204

Processing of your application
The Norwegian Embassy in Nairobi is our regional hub for East Africa in migration cases, and is responsible for handling visa and residence permit cases. Please note that all documents will be forwarded to Nairobi in order to process your applications.

If you have further queries that VFS is unable to answer, you can contact the Norwegian Embassy in Nairobi by sending an email to visum.nairobi@mfa.no. Kindly note that the Embassy in Nairobi does not answer visa and immigration related queries by telephone.

If you have already applied, please also submit your reference number (DUF number), or application receipt number from UDI's application portal.